rugose

Pronounced: ROO-gohs, adj

Notes: An interesting word to know

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Yesterday’s word

The word blate, as a verb, means “to babble; to cry” — as an adjective, it means “timid”

First usage

The verb goes back to the late 1800s; the adjective goes way back to 1000

Background / Comments

The verb form is thought to be an alteration of the word bleat, which used to rhyme with ‘great’ (an interesting side note is that bleat and blate are anagrams). The adjective form comes from the Scots word blate (timid, sheepish).

Rejected words

I knew of the word indissoluble (not able to dissolve; incapable of being broken). It turns out that dissoluble appeared first, with indissoluble following in less than a decade. The roots they comes from also give us dissolvable, and, yes, even indissolvable, although it is an archaic word as well as a rare one.